I would think Radagast is going to end up either dying or transforming in some way. Maybe that stone will play a part in the fate of Radagast. Or maybe that stone is the one Gandalf uses in FOTR though it looks a bit different. There are so many questions I can't wait to have answered! I think thet staff subplot was thought of as a way to explain Radagasts absence from the Lord of the Rings. Something dramatic will happen no doubt!

He was still alive during Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire ... that doesn't jive with me ... “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

All fantasies and science fictions worth their salt have glowing crystals of doom. Or at least glowing crystals. We'd be rather disappointed without them, I think. That being said, I really liked the bluish-green color of Radagast's crystal. Some people may not like Radagast, but I love basically every scene he's in. He's so Crazy Awesome, man.

Anyway, when the Fellowship is in Moria, doesn't the light from Gandalf's staff come from a clear or whitish crystal he places in the top of his staff? I could swear it does. What I can't remember is whether that crystal was there all the time or not. I'm thinking it wasn't, because I seem to recall his hand reaching up and placing the crystal in his staff when he lights it up, talking about, "We must now face the long dark of Moria," or some such. So perhaps all the wizards really do carry crystals around in their pockets!

Does Saruman carry a crystal? That would be interesting. Then again, I think his staff already has one embedded in it, so perhaps he doesn't need to carry one around in his pocket.

Hahaha, but this discussion reminds me of when my brother was little and he thought putting rocks in his pockets would give him 'rockets'. And so he would jump off the tables trying to fly through the air. Good times. "I had forgotten that. It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the Sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"

"As he ever has judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house."